Public Art
Line marker endeavours are, by their conceptual beginnings, public art. They are tethered to their world-use and omnipresent ‘nature’.
However, designated public art opportunities are pursued in locations that directly correlate to ideas of transportation, urbanization, the city as image, public service structures and the multiple meaning(s) of landscape.
LEGER / REGEL, 2009, line marker on aluminum, Leger Transit Station, City of Edmonton
A public artwork for the City of Edmonton exploring a literary and visual roundtrip for the viewer/commuter. The title, a palindrome using the site name and the German word ‘regel or rule, offers the line marker as the border of transportation alongside a window view of trees indigenous to Alberta.
FORTERRA, 2018, oil on aluminum on canvas, map pins
Using the language of the road as way finder and conceptual index; studio works have developed a specific meaning associated with ‘place’ from the colloquial to the global. Further, ‘place’ has been attached to both fact (the civic regulations we live with) and fiction (the storytelling that enriches our lives).
A public art work for The Cotton Factory located in the lower city of Hamilton, ON; FORTERRA, as both performance and object was created of/from the periphery roads which frame The Cotton Factory – Sherman, Biggar and Landsdowne. Transferring their present day street record through the technique of frottage or rubbing; the Factory’s periphery roads are visually translated as a ‘bridge’, a ‘roadway post and lintel’ system, connecting THE COTTON FACTORY to its community. As a composite word and idea FORTERRA translates to one of ‘strength and ‘ground’. Its mapping pins augment the work in a coded manner, tethering to the mandate of The Cotton Factory – blue as public facility, purple as industrial, green as recreational and red as commercial.
all the lines in the world my son, 2017, text message board, varied running length
For the exhibition URBAN GREEN, commemorating Canada’s 150th year of Confederation; a text message board employed alongside highways is posited within the City of Hamilton’s historic Sam Lawrence Park. Containing 150 text messages scrolling continuously for six weeks, visitors read a variety of musings ranging from the history of the escarpment and its vista to generational advice to commuting woes on the adjoining traffic access.
all the lines in the world my son, 2017, text message board, varied running length
In CANADIAN PAINTING CANADIAN, Wells’ employment of the line marker, merging with pastoral elements of the landscape, earmarks his ongoing exploration of both place and space. Each axis-mundi panel situated between a bank of elevators, underscore the element of accession. Further, Wells’ title-idea of a Canadian Painting / Painting Canadian / Canadian Painting Canadian / are a taxonomical / narrative / identity attached to cultural objects musing – with the commercial Canadiana businesses making up the conceptual ‘backstage’. Both Maple and Birch trees selected for their national historicity, omnipresence and cultural traditions are roots for our scion visitation experience, aided by the markers, to journey’s ahead and journey’s made.
CPC, 2024, Stelco Tower, Hamilton, ON, Collection Of Yale Properties
